History of Ballets Russes - Russian Ballet History Russian Ballet History The Collection's Beginings The History of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes 1909-1929 The Ballets Russes was a ballet company established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev. Diaghilev had already enjoyed success in Paris in 1908, when he presented a season of Russian art, music, and opera. He was invited back the following year to give a programme of Russian opera and ballet. The company was initially in resident at the Théâtre Mogador and Théâtre du Châtelet , in Paris years later moving to Monte Carlo. The company returned in 1910; in 1911 it was presented under Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and made its debut in London. Its' original members were from the Tsar's Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia where all its dancers were associated and trained. The company consisted of 13 members, all attaining a very high standard of dance.

The company featured and premiered now-famous works by the great choreographers Marius Petipa , Michel Fokine, Bronislava Nijinska , Leonide Massine , Vaslav Nijinsky , and a young George Balanchine at the start of his career. It created a sensation in Western Europe because of the great vitality of Russian ballet compared to French dance. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes became one of the most influential ballet companies of the 20th century, in part because of its ground-breaking artistic collaboration among contemporary choreographers , composers , artists , and dancers. Its works were part of the avant-garde culture in Paris and France. In 1914, Leonide Massine joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. April 16th was the premiere of the one-act ballet, Papillons choreographed by Fokine. It was also the premiere of another of Fokine’s one-act ballet, La Légende de Joseph . Only a month later, May 24th was Fokine’s opera premiere Le Coq d'Or .

A few days later, on May 26, it was the premiere performance of Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) choreographed by Boris Romanov. Finishing off the summer season in June, Fokine premiered his newest choreographed piece, Midas. Video of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Comes To America - Fall of 1916-1917 Diaghilev's Ballets Russes came to American in 1916. That was the only tour that Diaghilev's Ballets Russes ever danced as a company in the United States. Their first performance was in New York. They opened on January 17, 1916 with The Firebird , La Princesse Enchantée , Le Soleil de Nuit and Schéhérezade . The American public, except those who travelled abroad, had never seen Russian ballet before. After that performance they toured sixteen towns, dancing in a different place each evening. The tour wound up back in New York on April 3, 1916, at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Nijinsky didn't join the tour until the second half, Leonide Massine had been dancing his roles. When Nijinsky turned up he was in bad spirits and out of practice. Trying to book the rest of the year, Diaghilev approached promoter Otto Kahn about another USA tour later in the year, Kahn stipulated that Nijinsky had to be included in the company. So Diaghilev had to agree to hand over the business end of the company to Kahn, while he and Grigoriev retired for the remainder of the year. But on April 29, 1916, just before the end of the season, Diaghilev received an invitation for the company to perform in Spain’s request. This opportunity filled the summer season for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes . On May 6th, they set sail back to Europe on the Dante Alighieri ship, loaded with a cargo of ammunition, horses and the Diaghilev Ballets Russes dancers . World War I was in full swing and, the main threat to their welfare while sailing home was from German submarines lurking off the Spanish coast.

Their first performance in Madrid was on May 26, 1916 at the command of King Alfonso. Lydia Lopokova enchanted everyone in Le Carnaval and Les Sylphides and Leonide Massine's Soleil de Nuit was well received. The King attended every remaining performance of the successful European season. On September, 8, 1916 Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes set sail back to America for the second tour. Diaghilev and Grigoriev remained in Rome. Nicolas Kremnev was appointed as régisseur, under Nijinsky's management. Telegrams arrived daily to Diaghilev in Rome; the season was going badly with factions of the company falling out with each other. Nijinsky had composed a new ballet to Strauss's “Till Eulenspiegel”. Its first performance was October 23, 1916. It was a failure. This is the only ballet, in the history of Diaghilev’s company, that was not seen by Diaghilev.

The season finished with a large financial loss and the company's reputation was so damaged that the Ballets Russes was never able to appear in American ever again. Hall of Mirrors Performance in Versailles Palace Diaghilev's Ballets Russes performed Le Mariage D'Aurore or Aurora's Wedding in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles Palace on June 30, 1923. The Final Season The final season for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes was in 1929. The Ballets Russes performed in London and in Paris that year. On July 26th, 1929, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes gave its final performance at Covent Garden Theatre in London. Diaghilev died in Venice, Ballets Russes Archive Search Finding Aids History of the Ballets Russes On May 19, 1909, Sergei Diaghilev founded the Ballet Russe and launched his career as a ballet impresario. The roster included legendary artists such as Anna Pavlova, Vaslav Nijinski, and Tamara Karsavina.

Featuring two gifted choreographers, Mikhail Fokine and George Balanchine, the company shocked Western Europe with the force, color, skill, and originality of Russian dancing and continued to do so until disbanding following Diaghilev’s death in 1929. The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was founded in 1932 by Rene Blum and Col. Wassily de Basil. This company was known for its presentation of the “Baby Ballerinas”: Irina Baranova, Tamara Toumanova, and Tatiana Riabouchinska. In 1935, Blum severed his connection with de Basil and a legal struggle ensued. During this time, the company appeared under several different names. Having lost the rights to the ‘Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo’ name to Blum, de Basil changed the name of his company to the Original Ballet Russe and maintained touring in the United States, South America, and Australia. He died in 1951 and his dancers were disbanded soon after. Following the lawsuit, Blum retained choreographer Leon Massine. In 1937, Sergei J Denham and other investors bought Blum’s company.

At the advent of World War II, the company was based primarily out of the United States. The company disbanded in 1962. Photographs by Maurice Seymour, courtesy of Ronald Seymour. Ballets Russes Archive at the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma As some former Ballets Russes dancers left their respective companies, they settled in many communities throughout the United States. Two of these dancers, husband and wife Miguel Terekhov and Yvonne Chouteau founded the University of Oklahoma School of Dance in 1961. In 2005, discussions began with School of Dance to donate some of their memorabilia. This launched the collection of material that eventually led to the founding of the Ballets Russes Archive in 2007. What began as a small amount of material has expanded to approximately 70 linear feet of information, with contributions from sixty-one individuals to date. The collections include contracts, correspondence, programs, clippings, diaries, scrapbooks, and photographs as well as video resources and ephemera. Collection of oral histories and transcripts of live interviews is ongoing.

History of the Ballets Russes Events Film Series Ball BR History 2009 Festival Print About From its legendary first performances in May 1909 at the Theatre du Chatelet, the Ballets Russes did more for Parisian audiences than just present them with new choreography, new music, new stars, and a new performing company. These productions redefined ballet for the twentieth century, reinventing an entire art form that had grown stale elsewhere in Europe. At Russia's Imperial theaters and ballet school, the traditions of ballet, rooted in the court dances of Louis XIV's reign and Italian pantomime were not only preserved, but nurtured and developed further. With extensive financial support from the Tsar's coffers, few corners were cut in the training of dancers, the hiring of choreographic and performing talent, and the staging of productions. It was in St. Petersburg that all of Diaghilev's great choreographers, and many of his star and corps de ballet dancers were trained.

Fokin, Nijinsky, Massine, Nijinska, and Balanchine were all the products of the Imperial Ballet School, and began their dance careers at the Mariinsky theater, as did Karsavina, Pavlova, Danilova, Lopokova and countless others. The first Ballets Russes ballet actually premiered in Russia and had nothing at all to do with Diaghilev. Pavillon d'Armide was the brainchild of the artist, critic and historian Alexandre Benois, an avid balletomane whose grandfather had built the Mariinsky Theater. Benois wrote the libretto of the ballet in 1903 and Nikolai Tcherepnin composed the music to suit the plot, in close consultation with Benois. The ballet was bought by the Mariinsky, but left unstaged until Mikhail Fokin, a brilliant young choreographer and balletmeister there came across it, staging a segment of it as a graduation performance for the students of the Imperial Ballet School.

The success of this performance led to renewed interest in the ballet for the Mariinsky's main stage, and in 1907 Fokin and Benois staged the ballet together, with sets and costumes designed by Alexandre. A scholar of not only art but dance history, Benois worked throughout with Fokin on the stage direction and even choreography of the piece, especially the numbers involving large groups of dancers. Benois' great friend, Diaghilev was present at the opening and was conquered by the performance, finally agreeing with Benois' advice that he should bring not only opera but ballet productions to Paris. Le Pavillon d'Armide demonstrated both Fokin's innovative approach to choreography, and Benois' ideas about collaborative creation in the theater, where he felt directors, designers, composers and performers should work together as one, to achieve aesthetic unity. All this would become the foundation of the Ballets Russes as a company, and would ensure its Parisian success. The Ballets Russes' twenty-year existence can be broken up into approximate choreographic periods.

1909-1914 was the Fokin era, and it was he who not only created most of the company's ballets, but also maintained the troupe as balletmeister. Fokin's seminal choreographic works, performed frequently to this day, include Les Sylphides, Scheherezade, Firebird, Petrushka, and Spectre de la Rose. He also created numerous other productions that are less well known today because the complexities of their staging and the lack of preserved choreography make them difficult to put on, among them are Pavillon d'Armide, Daphnis et Chloe, and Le Coq d'Or. A student of Fokin's from the Imperial Ballet School and star of many of his choreographic compositions, Vaslav Nijinsky, eventually became Diaghilev's choreographic protege. However, he managed to create just three ballets before his 1913 marriage nearly ended his career. Insanely jealous, Diaghilev fired Nijinsky, and re-hired him only briefly in 1916 when Nijinsky danced in the Ballets' North American tour and created one last ballet, Till Eulenspiegel.

Although his work as a choreographer was brief, it was significant; in Prelude a l'apresmidi d'un Faune, Le Sacre du Printemps and Jeux, Nijinsky departed even further than Fokin from the traditional vocabulary of movement, progressing more in the direction of modern dance than in the continuation of ballet tradition resumed by his successor, Leonid Massine. Principal choreographer as well as star dancer after the departure of both Fokin and Nijinsky, Massine led the company from 1915 to 1921. Among his innovative choreographic works of the period were Le Soleil de Nuit, La Boutique Fantastique, and Le Tricorne. When, after years as Diaghilev's lover, Massine declared his independence by marrying and refusing to allow himself to be bullied by his sometimes overbearing boss, he nevertheless remained tied to the Ballets Russes. From 1932 to 1937 he was the chief choreographer of the Colonel de Basil Ballets Russes, a successor company, before leaving with a group of discontented dancers to start his own troupe, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

In the de Basil Ballets, Massine had shared the spotlight with two former colleagues, Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine. A brilliant dancer herself, though not so beloved as her elder brother, Nijinska had worked for Diaghilev for over a decade when she finally got her chance to be a choreographer in 1923. Among the pieces she created at the Ballets Russes were Les Noces, Le Train Bleu, and Les Biches. Balanchine was her successor and the company's last major choreographer. After a knee injury effectively ended his performing career in 1926, he concentrated his energies on choreography and by Diaghilev's death in 1929 had created nine ballets, including La Chatte, Apollon Musagete, Le Fils Prodigue and Le Bal. Many of these starred Diaghilev's latest lover, Serge Lifar, who might well have become the next balletmeister if Diaghilev had not died soon after Lifar's first efforts in choreography.

Altogether, the choreographers and dancers of the Ballets Russes overturned many of the static conventions of classical Ballet, and ushered in the era of modern dance while preserving a sense of tradition and the heritage of the Russian ballet school. Portrait of Serge Diaghilev Step-by-step guide to dance: Diaghilev's Ballets Russes | Stage | The Guardian Step-by-step guide to dance Step-by-step guide to dance: Diaghilev's Ballets Russes A despotic director, glamorous dancers and the great and good of the artistic world ... the story of the Ballets Russes is the fairytale at the heart of 20th-century dance Friday 11 December 2009 07.51 EST First published on Friday 11 December 2009 07.51 EST Pinterest In short The Ballets Russes dragged ballet out of the 19th century and launched it into the 20th. In the process, they redefined the art of dance on all levels – not just its style and subject, but its place, status and reach.

Backstory In May 1909, a group of Russian dancers, on holiday from their regular jobs at the Mariinsky Ballet in St Petersburg, performed a season of ballet at a dowdy theatre in Paris. They were presented by impresario Serge Diaghilev, who calculated that ballet would be cheaper than the opera he'd presented there the previous year. Diaghilev milked his contacts, and opening night was duly attended by ministers, high society, artists and aristocrats. And le tout Paris was thrilled. Ballet had become moribund, artistically flimsy and socially disreputable. But these pieces showed technical brio, especially in the vigorous male dancing; they had first-rate music, vibrant colours, and exotic themes. A second, even more successful season followed in 1910; then in 1911, Diaghilev officially established the Ballets Russes in Paris, and the company left Russia for good. The group travelled a rocky road, its finances always precarious, its personal relations volatile. But it was also trailblazing. Diaghilev had a nose for talent, and consistently brokered partnerships between his choreographers and leading artists and composers.

In the early years, his main choreographer was Michel Fokine , with designers Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois , and young Igor Stravinsky as the most prominent composer. But Fokine quit when Diaghilev began promoting his lover and star dancer Vaslav Nijinsky as choreographer. Nijinsky's anti-ballet style and overt sexuality was revolutionary. In L'Après-midi d'un Faune, he caused a scandal with an "indecent gesture" (basically, he humped a scarf), but that was nothing compared with the now-legendary riot that greeted the Rite of Spring in 1913, now considered a founding moment of modernism. It was a scandal – but once again, le tout Paris was talking about the Ballets Russes. Pinterest Later that year, Nijinsky suddenly got married. Consumed with rage and jealousy, Diaghilev fired him. Nijinsky began a long decline into mental illness. His role as both choreographer and lover was taken by Léonide Massine , who produced more character-led pieces, as well as the famous "cubist" ballet Parade (1917).

But then history repeated itself: in 1920, Massine got married, and Diaghilev got rid of him. His next choreographer was Nijinsky's younger sister, Bronislava Nijinska, who produced some outstanding works, including the breathtaking Les Noces. She was replaced in 1925 by George Balanchine , a refugee from Russia who went on to become the single most influential choreographer in 20th-century ballet. Pinterest Diaghilev died in Venice in 1929, and the company with him. The list of his artistic collaborators are a roll-call of the 20th-century's hottest composers and artists: Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie, Poulenc, de Falla, Picasso, Matisse, Miró, de Chirico – to name only a few. The Ballets Russes had revitalised the art of dance: it was not only a part of emerging artistic movements – primitivism, surrealism, cubism, constructivism, neoclassicism – it was a driving force behind them. All that, and it was fashionable too. That was then; what about now?

The Ballets Russes is now history, but its influence remains. After Diaghilev's death, a number of new companies were founded (confusingly, several were called Ballet Russe) and a whole Diaghilevian diaspora spread across Europe, north and south America, South Africa and Australia. A huge number of ballet companies around the world trace their roots to the Ballets Russes. Some of its ideas and innovations are still current: it was the first company to introduce the triple-bill format of one-act ballets; the first ballet company to rely on sales and sponsorship rather than patronage. Above all, it showed that dance can be a serious contemporary art. Combined with great art and music to make total theatre, the Ballets Russes proved that dance could lead audiences rather than chase them. Watching Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Several Ballets Russes pieces are still performed. Of Fokine's, Les Sylphides is the most common, a "mood ballet" that was an antecedent of abstract dance.

You can also sometimes see the folkloric Firebird and Petrushka, and occasionally Schéhérazade, an orientalist fantasy of orgies and bloodbaths. Pinterest Of Nijinsky's pieces, only L'Après-midi d'un Faune survives, though others have been reconstructed. Faune is still strikingly modern: flat-footed, highly stylised, anti-expressive. Massine's pieces were very popular at the time, but rarely seen now: you might catch La Boutique Fantasque or Le Tricorne. Of Nijinska's you can still see two: Les Biches, chic and a little risqué, and the harsh, monumental Les Noces. You can also see Massine playing the choreographer Grisha Ljubov in the 1948 film The Red Shoes , which is loosely based on the Ballets Russes and is one of the few British films that managed, like the company that inspired it, to be experimental, inspirational and popular all at the same time. Balanchine's Apollo is in the repertory of many companies around the world, and it still feels timeless (partly because its original quirks were ironed out).

His Prodigal Son is sometimes also performed. An unusually explicit work for him, with a straightforward narrative and expressive characters, it has much more of a period flavour. Who's who Quite: the list of artists and composers who worked with the Ballets Russes reads like a Who's Who of the early 20th-century. There are too many to list here; you can look them up on the Encyclopaedia Britannica website . But at least two others involved in the dance company deserve mention: Serge Lifar , Diaghilev's last star dancer (and yet another lover), who went on to direct the Paris Opera Ballet ; and Boris Kochno , who began as Diaghilev's secretary (and, briefly, boyfriend), and took over much of the running of the company in its final years. Fact Diaghilev's last lover, the composer and conductor Igor Markevitch , later married the daughter of Diaghilev's best-known lover, Nijinsky. Before divorcing, Markevitch and Kyra Nijinsky had one son, whom they named Vaslav.

(What was that all about?) Do say "Dear Royal Ballet, please put on Les Noces." Nijinska's Les Noces isn't shown much. It's a lot of effort to mount, and conventional audiences steer clear because it's not remotely nice. It is, however, a masterpiece, and I wish we saw it more often. Don't say "It's not proper Russian, it's not proper ballet, and it's certainly not proper Russian ballet." See also In the UK, the Royal Ballet , English National Ballet and Rambert Dance Company trace their origins to the Ballets Russes. So do New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre in America. Now watch this Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: Twenty Years That Changed the World of Art - Houghton Library - Harvard College Library Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: Twenty Years That Changed the World of Art Previous Introduction Alexandre Benois (1870-1960). Le Pavillon d’Armide, Costume design for King, Queen, and Servants, 1909.

Watercolor, ink, and pencil. Howard D. Rothschild collection on Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev. pf MS Thr 414.4 (31). Bequest, 1989. HOLLIS Catalog Entry . Finding Aid . The Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev claims a special position, even a unique one, in the history of the performing arts, in terms of a reawakening of interest in ballet in Europe and America, in bringing Russian culture to the attention of the rest of the Western world, and in presenting ballet as an equal partnership of movement, music, and visual design, in which all of the creative participants—composers, designers, and choreographers, as well as the inventors of plots and authors of scenarios—exerted an influence upon other aspects of their collaborative works.

While this was an enterprise that appealed especially to privileged and cultured populations in the largest cities, it exerted an influence on the future of ballet that extended far beyond those cities and endured beyond the impressive immediate accom­plish­ment of having presented some seventy individual ballets that were created and performed through the collab­ora­tion of many of the significant artists of the early years of the twentieth century. Serge Diaghilev was responsible for bringing together and providing important opportunities to such emerging creative artists of that time as Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, Serge Prokofiev, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, and Joan Miró, as well as to a number of leading Russian painters, including Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Nicholas Roerich, Alexander Golovine, Natalia Gon­charova, and Mikhail Larionov.

Many of the greatest Russian dancers, among them Vaslav Nijinsky, Michel Fokine, Adolph Bolm, Tamara Kar­savina, and Anna Pavlova, danced for Diaghilev; and he fostered the careers of many more dancers who were nurtured under the auspices of the Ballets Russes. It was Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, perhaps more than any other company, who was responsible for bringing back the prominence of the male dancer and for seizing upon the sensual possibilities of ballet. In him, management and admini­stration were elevated to a creative art. Especially in its earlier years, the Ballets Russes was grounded in Russian culture: amid a number of modernist, advanced works, Diaghilev brought out ballets based on traditional Russian themes, created by Russian-born artists, com­posers, and choreographers, and performed by dancers trained in Russia. Diaghilev also revived a number of representative ballets and operas from the nineteenth-century Russian tradition.

The Ballets Russes began on a small scale: the first season consisted only of a few weeks in Paris, with no immediate expectation of permanency; and the second season, limited to Paris and brief appearances in two other cities, was nearly as brief. It was the third season, in 1911, that brought the Ballets Russes to London, where it truly caught fire; from that time, performing now under Diaghilev’s own name, the company was eagerly followed and enthusiast­ically reported, as it grew in size, in repertory, in prestige, and in fashion. It could be said that in Diaghilev the role of the producer or impresario had become much like that of a curator. The Ballets Russes represented Diaghilev’s own aesthetic convictions and realized his own artistic intentions. Those personal con­victions and predilections were not permanent and un­changing, and they reflect­ed to some extent political and societal realities over those twenty turbulent and eventful years. But there was perhaps never quite a parallel circumstance in the history of the arts in which the tastes and personal influence of one person had such an effect on the future of the world of art.

The year 2009 was the centenary of the founding of the Ballets Russes. “The World of Art,” the phrase chosen for the exhibition’s title, is not only a broad declaration of the impact and influence of the Ballets Russes, but it is in fact a translation of the title of a periodical in support of modern art, “Mir Iskusstva,” which Diaghilev edited in St. Petersburg, and which first brought him recognition. The exhibition pays tribute to Diaghilev as a genius among impresarios and entre­preneurs, to the repertory of ballets that were created under his super­vision, and to the creators and performers whose collaboration brought them about. This exhibition also brings to life the beauty and impact of the celebrated works that resulted from the historic collaborative enterprise of the Ballets Russes. The exhibition was organized by the late Fredric Woodbridge Wilson, Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection from 1996 to 2010. Its more than 200 original documents and art works are drawn from the holdings of Houghton Library’s Harvard Theatre Collection.

It is intended that this exhibition should narrate—however episodically—the history of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the creation of the individual ballets, and the life of Diaghilev; and to convey to its audience some sense of why this artistic undertaking was uniquely celebrated in its time. Within the setting of a large research library, one that is freely available to and used by a worldwide community of scholars, our exhibitions have a separ­ate and parallel purpose. That purpose is to show, as persuasively as possible, the value of primary sources—manuscripts, art work, photographs, programs, and many other types of material—for historical research. In an exhibition on a subject upon which the Harvard Theatre Collec­tion contains such a wealth of material from which to draw, as in the present instance, we hope to show the possibilities for research that are uniquely available in the largest collections, in which items that were separately acquired, and which are often very different in their nature, can complement, supple­ment, and inform one another—photograph with design, design with letter, letter with manuscript, manuscript with portrait, and so on.

To foster future histor­ical research, or stage produc­tion, or artistic creativity, is the first purpose of collections like this one, and public exhibitions are often a most effective way to bring their holdings to the notice of those who are best able to make productive use of them. This exhibition is a collaborative and cooperative effort. The exhibition was researched, organized and written by Fredric Woodbridge Wilson, the late Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection. Ric was generously assisted in the research and writing by Diana Limbach and Iris M. Fanger. He was also assisted in research by Irina Klyagin. Pamela Madsen and Thomas Horrocks edited Ric’s work and Luke Dennis prepared it for this digital format. Harvard College Library Imaging Services contributed the digitization and photography. We are most grateful to the many donors of collections and individual collection items that have been drawn upon in this exhibition, and for the funds that have been endowed by individual donors, which have been used to purchase items that are also shown in the exhibition. These donors and funds are acknowledged in the captions and labels that are associated with the individual items in the exhibition. Among the collections that have been included in the exhibition are the following: The Howard D.

Rothschild collection on Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev The Frederick R. Koch Collection The Stravinsky-Diaghilev Foundation Collection The A. J. and Tess Pischl Collection The Carl Taggersell Collection The John M. and Ruth N. Ward Collection The George Balanchine Archive The exhibition was supported by the fol­low­­ing endowed funds in the Harvard Theatre Collection: The Howard D. Rothschild Fund for the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev The Beatrice, Benjamin, and Richard Bader Fund for the Visual Arts of the Theatre The Edmond de Rothschild Foundation Fund for Dance The Parmenia Migel Ekstrom Memorial Fund for Dance The Walter Terry Memorial Fund for Dance The John Kasdan Fund for Dance As well as a special gift from Mr. Melvin R. Seiden. Dance and the Ballets Russes Events Film Series Ball BR History 2009 Festival Print About From its legendary first performances in May 1909 at the Theatre du Chatelet, the Ballets Russes did more for Parisian audiences than just present them with new choreography, new music, new stars, and a new performing company.

These productions redefined ballet for the twentieth century, reinventing an entire art form that had grown stale elsewhere in Europe. At Russia's Imperial theaters and ballet school, the traditions of ballet, rooted in the court dances of Louis XIV's reign and Italian pantomime were not only preserved, but nurtured and developed further. With extensive financial support from the Tsar's coffers, few corners were cut in the training of dancers, the hiring of choreographic and performing talent, and the staging of productions. It was in St. Petersburg that all of Diaghilev's great choreographers, and many of his star and corps de ballet dancers were trained. Fokin, Nijinsky, Massine, Nijinska, and Balanchine were all the products of the Imperial Ballet School, and began their dance careers at the Mariinsky theater, as did Karsavina, Pavlova, Danilova, Lopokova and countless others. The first Ballets Russes ballet actually premiered in Russia and had nothing at all to do with Diaghilev.

Pavillon d'Armide was the brainchild of the artist, critic and historian Alexandre Benois, an avid balletomane whose grandfather had built the Mariinsky Theater. Benois wrote the libretto of the ballet in 1903 and Nikolai Tcherepnin composed the music to suit the plot, in close consultation with Benois. The ballet was bought by the Mariinsky, but left unstaged until Mikhail Fokin, a brilliant young choreographer and balletmeister there came across it, staging a segment of it as a graduation performance for the students of the Imperial Ballet School. The success of this performance led to renewed interest in the ballet for the Mariinsky's main stage, and in 1907 Fokin and Benois staged the ballet together, with sets and costumes designed by Alexandre. A scholar of not only art but dance history, Benois worked throughout with Fokin on the stage direction and even choreography of the piece, especially the numbers involving large groups of dancers. Benois' great friend, Diaghilev was present at the opening and was conquered by the performance, finally agreeing with Benois' advice that he should bring not only opera but ballet productions to Paris.

Le Pavillon d'Armide demonstrated both Fokin's innovative approach to choreography, and Benois' ideas about collaborative creation in the theater, where he felt directors, designers, composers and performers should work together as one, to achieve aesthetic unity. All this would become the foundation of the Ballets Russes as a company, and would ensure its Parisian success. The Ballets Russes' twenty-year existence can be broken up into approximate choreographic periods. 1909-1914 was the Fokin era, and it was he who not only created most of the company's ballets, but also maintained the troupe as balletmeister. Fokin's seminal choreographic works, performed frequently to this day, include Les Sylphides, Scheherezade, Firebird, Petrushka, and Spectre de la Rose. He also created numerous other productions that are less well known today because the complexities of their staging and the lack of preserved choreography make them difficult to put on, among them are Pavillon d'Armide, Daphnis et Chloe, and Le Coq d'Or.

A student of Fokin's from the Imperial Ballet School and star of many of his choreographic compositions, Vaslav Nijinsky, eventually became Diaghilev's choreographic protege. However, he managed to create just three ballets before his 1913 marriage nearly ended his career. Insanely jealous, Diaghilev fired Nijinsky, and re-hired him only briefly in 1916 when Nijinsky danced in the Ballets' North American tour and created one last ballet, Till Eulenspiegel. Although his work as a choreographer was brief, it was significant; in Prelude a l'apresmidi d'un Faune, Le Sacre du Printemps and Jeux, Nijinsky departed even further than Fokin from the traditional vocabulary of movement, progressing more in the direction of modern dance than in the continuation of ballet tradition resumed by his successor, Leonid Massine. Principal choreographer as well as star dancer after the departure of both Fokin and Nijinsky, Massine led the company from 1915 to 1921.

Among his innovative choreographic works of the period were Le Soleil de Nuit, La Boutique Fantastique, and Le Tricorne. When, after years as Diaghilev's lover, Massine declared his independence by marrying and refusing to allow himself to be bullied by his sometimes overbearing boss, he nevertheless remained tied to the Ballets Russes. From 1932 to 1937 he was the chief choreographer of the Colonel de Basil Ballets Russes, a successor company, before leaving with a group of discontented dancers to start his own troupe, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In the de Basil Ballets, Massine had shared the spotlight with two former colleagues, Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine. A brilliant dancer herself, though not so beloved as her elder brother, Nijinska had worked for Diaghilev for over a decade when she finally got her chance to be a choreographer in 1923. Among the pieces she created at the Ballets Russes were Les Noces, Le Train Bleu, and Les Biches. Balanchine was her successor and the company's last major choreographer.

After a knee injury effectively ended his performing career in 1926, he concentrated his energies on choreography and by Diaghilev's death in 1929 had created nine ballets, including La Chatte, Apollon Musagete, Le Fils Prodigue and Le Bal. Many of these starred Diaghilev's latest lover, Serge Lifar, who might well have become the next balletmeister if Diaghilev had not died soon after Lifar's first efforts in choreography. Altogether, the choreographers and dancers of the Ballets Russes overturned many of the static conventions of classical Ballet, and ushered in the era of modern dance while preserving a sense of tradition and the heritage of the Russian ballet school. During the 2009 festival, Boston Ballet will present a new evening program of four of the groundbreaking short ballets from different phases in the aesthetic evolution of the Ballets Russes. First performed in 1911, Le Spectre de la Rose (the Specter of the Rose) is in essence a pas de deux created by Mikhail Fokin specifically for the first two dancers to perform it, Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina.

In the ballet, a young girl returns home from her society debut at a ball. She dreams that she dances with the rose she held at the ball, whose specter was danced by Nijinsky, causing quite a sensation. Audiences were particularly enraptured by his final athletic leap out of the girl's window, which ended both the girl's reverie and the ballet itself. Nijinsky's first choreographic effort, Prelude a l'apresmidi d'un Faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun) was the most controversial performance of the Ballet Russe in 1912, signaling the beginning of a shift towards modernism. In the ballet, Nijinsky completely fulfilled Diaghilev's expectations of a revolutionary and provocative dance. The plot centers on a faun who unsuccessfully flirts with nymphs. When the nymphs run away, leaving behind a scarf belonging to one among them, the faun plays with the scarf ending the ballet with simulated masturbation.

Nijinsky's performance as the faun was powerful, virile, and even animalistic, according to some observers, who were mostly shocked by the ballet's overt sexuality, which went far beyond the subtler eroticism of Fokin ballets like Cleopatre and Scheherezade. Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) went even further, in 1913, towards flouting old conventions. While Fokin's work was stylized and aestheticised, Nijinsky moved towards the primitive, choreographing jerky movements and sharp body angles that reflected Stravinsky's extremely rhythmic and avant-garde score. Once again, sex was the subject, depicting old mythologized Russian fertility rites, which included human sacrifice. The first presentation of the Ballet created such a stir that fights broke out in the audience, which could only be stopped by the eventual arrival of the police. Balanchine's Le Fils Prodigue, (The Prodigal Son) was one of the last productions premiered by the Ballets Russes. Based on the biblical tale, it was more narrative and less abstract than some of Balanchine's other works, reflecting his neoclassical approach to ballet.

Mikhail Fokin and Vera

Question: Who founded the Ballet Russe?
Answer: SERGEI DIAGHILEV